New Delhi, Dec. 11 -- A federal judge in Maryland on Thursday (December 11) ordered the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from immigration detention, ruling that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had no lawful authority to continue holding him.

US District Judge Paula Xinis said Abrego Garcia must be freed "immediately," noting that he had been "re-detained, again without lawful authority" after being mistakenly deported to El Salvador earlier this year.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who has lived in Maryland for years, first entered the US illegally as a teenager. He has an American wife and child.

In 2019, an immigration judge ruled he could not be deported to El Salvador because a gang had threatened his famil...